I'm happy to see three minor adjustments have just been made that I think will noticeably improve usability:

When you are not signed in, clicking on the "Sign In/Tools" link pops down a menu that used to have a button on top labeled "Sign In/Tools." People have been confused by that, thinking it was just another heading (not a button), so they had a hard time knowing they should click on it to sign in. Now the button is simply labeled "Sign In," which is a clearer invitation to click it in order to sign in.

When you are signed in, the "Sign In/Tools" link used to change to simply display your name. But it still had the function of being the Tools menu. Many people had a hard time figuring out that to get to their tools they had to click on their name. Now the link says "John Doe/Tools" when you are signed in, which gives better feedback that it is indeed the Tools menu.

Finally, when you do click the "Sign In" button on the Sign In/Tools dropdown, when you have finished signing in, you are returned to the LDS.org home page with the Tools menu dropped down, which makes it easier to continue what you were doing (most likely using one of the tools) without having to dropdown the "John Doe/Tools" menu again.

Since I have fielded multiple calls/emails from members of my stake confused about those first two issues, I am very hopeful that these simple changes will be helpful in removing those points of confusion.

Thanks to the designers who continue to strive to improve the usability of LDS.org!

Note: Not all the pages have implemented this change yet, so if you're not on the home page of LDS.org, you may not see these changes.

Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.

Finally, when you do click the "Sign In" button on the Sign In/Tools dropdown, when you have finished signing in, you are returned to the LDS.org home page with the Tools menu dropped down, which makes it easier to continue what you were doing (most likely using one of the tools) without having to dropdown the "John Doe/Tools" menu again.

This third item would be a nice convenience, but it does not work for me. Other than that, the first two items are small but very significant improvements in understanding the menu functions, and my hat is off to the developers who continue to refine and improve in excellent ways.

showseason wrote:That third item does not work for me either with Chrome at home or at church.

That third item doesn't work for me anymore, either. I saw it happen at least 3 times; it was so unexpected that I wanted to make sure I wasn't crazy. But since that day I made the post, I haven't seen that again. Oh well . . . the first two points were the most important improvements anyway, and they seem to be permanent improvements.

Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.

The first two required some dev work, so had to wait until we could get another release out. We had a single string for Sign in, that we added "/Tools" to as a quick fix. Thus it showing up in the button as well. We had to add an additional string (and references to it) to separate out the "/Tool" portion so that it could be removed on the button, and added after your name.

The tools menu opening on the first page load after you sign in is coming back very soon. We had a bit of a hiccup with something and are working (as I type) to get the correct code in place. Should be there Sunday morning. If it's not... lets say that I didn't specify WHICH sunday morning

Aaron BarkerFront-end Development Lead for LDS.org (content portions, not apps) and Ward Executive Secretary.

BarkerAJ wrote:The tools menu opening on the first page load after you sign in is coming back very soon. We had a bit of a hiccup with something and are working (as I type) to get the correct code in place. Should be there Sunday morning. If it's not... lets say that I didn't specify WHICH sunday morning

rpyne wrote:It would be more accurate to say that almost none of the other pages have implemented the change, which would indicate that the new design is not part of a common template system.

That is also not accurate

The majority of the site by page number has changed over. All conference, magazine, manual, scriptures, etc pages are on the new menu system, which is a majority of the site by content. These are all part of the same "project" and release schedule. Other sections of the sites (calendar, directory, clerk, etc) are separate "projects" and have different release schedules. Since you may frequent these sections more frequently (as tech centric people) it would appear that "almost done" of the pages you use have implemented the change.

We do have a common source for the header and footer of the site. This was such a drastic change that we made a separate version of the service, so we wouldn't cause problems on sites/sections that were not ready for it. A common practice for any organization that provides a service consumed my many others out of their control. As projects release cycles come through they will update and the be on our new "common template system" for the header and footer and so future changes like our adding of "/Tools" to the navigation will be everywhere at once when the changes are made.

Aaron BarkerFront-end Development Lead for LDS.org (content portions, not apps) and Ward Executive Secretary.

BarkerAJ wrote:The tools menu opening on the first page load after you sign in is coming back very soon. We had a bit of a hiccup with something and are working (as I type) to get the correct code in place. Should be there Sunday morning. If it's not... lets say that I didn't specify WHICH sunday morning

There is still one issue with it that is annoying to me. If I am signed in already and open a new tab and go to lds.org the tools menu pops down. Also if I open a link in a new window then it opens with the tools menu down.